First, as always, we did our construction paper craft. But instead of one big letter that we decorated, we did a bunch of little letters.

I had cut out a pile of Letter Js and a rounded top so that my kids could make their own jellyfish with the letters as tentacles.

And googly eyes. I swear they get more excited about the letters that need eyes…

Then for our Letter Sorting activity, where they needed to separate out the capital and lowercase letters, I went with jack o’ lanterns.

My kids were still kind of little at this point in out Alphabet Activities, so I had cut out the pumpkins and faces ahead of time and all they did was glue the finished jack o’ lantern to the paper before gluing on the letters.

Now that they’re older, I might still have cut out the face pieces but I would have let them make the faces themselves first, probably from a selection of eyes and mouths.

Back to the chalk!

I love that my girls love being outdoors, so chalk letters are great way to get them moving.

I drew a bunch of big Letter Js to represent the word “jump.” And then we did just that – jump from J to J.

This was a TON of fun for my girls.

The night before Letter J Day, I made a couple of boxes of Jell-O in a big plastic bin and I threw a bunch of toys into it that started with the Letter J.

I didn’t get all fancy with worrying about where the toys would stay once the Jell-O solidified. I just tossed ’em in. Most of the toys floated to the top, but they were still partially submerged and, thus, still had to be dug out by little fingers that were eager to get messy.

We did it outside to keep the mess out of the house, but I suppose you could do it on a tile floor somewhere if you covered it in a tarp or with a tablecloth.

We made a pile of the toys in another bin (the sand castle-shaped container you see at the bottom), and then we rinsed off everything with the hose when we were done.

I cut out the J shapes with our letter cookie cutters, then slathered the toast in some butter and strawberry jelly.

I didn’t want to make a big, complicated dinner in between our projects, so I kept things simple with this chicken.

I marinated a package of boneless thighs in some Jamaican Jerk Marinade that I picked up in the supermarket and threw them on a grill pan. Easy Peasy. (Don’t forget to have the Little Ones seek out the Letter J on the bottle of marinade!)

That’s it for Letter J! Except for the free printable worksheets I made, which you can get here:

Simmer the water in a saucepot. Add the gelatin and stir until fully dissolved.

Remove from heat and stir in the birdseed until all seed is fully coated. If the mixture is still wet after stirring well, add more birdseed.

Place medium to large cookie cutters on top of waxed paper. Scoop birdseed mixture into cookie cutters and fill halfway.

Place a piece of string into the cookie cutter and scoop more birdseed mixture on top of the string, making sure that part of the string is buried into the center of the ornament (I knotted the twine here for support) and part is hanging out. Use a spoon to press the birdseed down firmly.

Allow to sit overnight. Very gently push birdseed ornaments out of cookie cutters and hang where desired. Makes about 6 large shapes.

My girls have had – and are still having – so much fun with this Pretend Play activity of Raking Leaves.

And it’s so simple, too!

I bought 3 bags of 50 leaves each at the dollar store, and we already had the rakes – although I think we bought them at the dollar store in the spring.

I do suggest using plastic rakes because they’re safer for indoors. We also have metal and wooden rakes, but plastic worked best for this.

Also, I prefer doing this activity on the carpet, but it does work on the tile and wood floors. To be honest, though, I found raking the leaves up on carpet with the plastic rake to be somewhat soothing. Meditative, even.

To store the leave we use a basket that we already had, but you could also use a plastic baggy. {That’s what I plan to store them in at the end of fall.}

Another thing these leaves are perfect for is throwing.

Rake up a pile and toss them into the air!

Seriously: these are made of fabric, so they kind of flutter down gently. The whole reason I decided to do this with my kids is because they adore the Elefun Game so much. And, really, the Elefun game isn’t perfect. The butterflies/fireflies come out too quickly and there aren’t enough of them, but my girls still love catching them AND collecting them afterwards.

But that’s why I bought 150 leaves for this activity – so there would be enough to entertain both of them. Plenty to keep them busy with raking and throwing.

And organizing.

My 4yo would make piles of the leaves, sorting them by color and counting them. And my 2yo made piles that were her “birds nests.”

The options are limitless.

And, like I said, this activity can be extremely affordable. I already had the rakes and the basket, and I bought the 3 bags of leaves for a buck a piece at the Dollar Tree. The plastic rakes can also be found in the outdoor toy section or garden section of places like Target or Kmart even Walgreens – at certain times of the year.

I like to make homemade activities for my girls by recycling things we have around the house.

We use pipe cleaners {or chenille sticks} fairly often, so we’ve always got those on hand. I usually get them at the dollar store.

For this project, I used 4 pipe cleaners and cut them into inch-long pieces with a pair of strong scissors.

Then, the goal was simply to put them into an old spice container.

This is the type of spice container that holds dried herbs, like parsley or oregano. You’ll notice the top has only 6 large holes.

It’s a great way to work on fine motor skills and helps with prewriting skills.

The only drawback to this is that the metal inside the pipe cleaners can be a little sharp. There are a couple of ways around this. One: ignore it. And two: use pliers to curve over the very ends of the metal pieces, making sure that the sticks still fit through the holes in the spice container.

We chose option one.

Really, it’s not terribly sharp and you can insert them without pushing the ends anyway if you manipulate the pieces by holding them on the fuzzy part. Or pushing gently, which is what I showed my girls.

Or, if you’re really worried about it, you could just use pieces of yarn instead.

My favorite part is that all the little pieces fit inside the container, and, thus, it is self-contained and easy to store.

My girls love to do projects, and I love that they enjoy projects that help them with letter recognition, pre-reading skills, and a whole handful of other useful exercises.

The main problem is that I haven’t gotten around to posting about all of the activities yet. Or all of the worksheets that I’ve made for the girls. But I’m getting to it.

Today, for example, I’m sharing one of the Letter U activities that we did… even though I haven’t yet officially posted ALL of the Letter U activities and worksheets yet. But with summer ending, I wanted to get this one out there. It’s a great way to get the kids outdoors.

I cut two letters from a piece of purple foam and gave a U to each of my girls.

I showed them a letter U worksheet with the words Up, Underground, and Underwater. We talked about what each word meant, then we used the foam letters to demonstrate each concept.

They held the letters over their heads, then buried them in the dirt, and, finally, submerged them in the pool.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes together into a ball.

Remove from heat and knead until smooth.

Store covered. Will keep for about two weeks.

[Note: even though all of the ingredients are technically edible, please don’t let your kids ingest this. Also, if your child is going to help with the kneading, please remember that the dough will still be hot when you first remove it from the pan. If stored in a sealed container, this will last many months.]

I cut some thin slices in an apple and used an A cookie cutter to make little apple ‘A’s.

And I ate all the scraps, too. :)

I’ve made these a bunch of times, usually for potlucks.

I’m not posting a recipe since it was all ready-made supplies {or you could substitute with your favorite homemade recipes}.

Check out the step-by-step photos:

I used a 2-inch flower shaped cookie cutter to cut pieces out of store bought pie crust. I placed the flower crusts in greased muffin tins. Then I scooped a few apples from a can of apple pie filling into the crust. I topped it with a generous sprinkle of my Cinnamon and Sugar Mix, and baked them according to the pie crust directions.

These little pies are always a hit.

Chocolate is a favorite in our house, so these chocolate acorns, it should go without saying, were also a hit.

The great thing is that they also work well for autumn-themed projects. I’m thinking of making them again around Thanksgiving.

As you can see in the photos, the ingredients are Hershey’s Kisses, mini Fudge Stripe cookies, and miniature chocolate chips.

I melted some chocolate chips in a baggy to act as the “glue” to hold it all together. Then we stuck the flat end of the Kisses onto the bottom of the cookies and let them sit for a minute to set. Then I put a drop of melted chocolate on the top of the cookies, and my daughter attached the kiss to the top.

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